Funeral of Hearts
by snarkvenger
Summary: I will cleanse this city for you. If only I could have saved you. I didn't mean to break your heart. -Bruce/Rachel/Harvey triangle. Oneshot.


First Batman fan fic. Yaaay. It's a just a short oneshot dealing with the Bruce/Rachel/Harvey love triangle. Reader beware, here are tons of spoliors to The Dark Knight. Do not read if you haven't seen it yet.

Disclaimer: Bruce, Alfred, Harvey, and the Joker belong to DC Comics. Rachel Dawes belongs to Christopher Nolan. The one line of lyrics and the title of this fic belong to HIM. The writing is mine.

**Funeral of Hearts **

_Love's the funeral of hearts…_

Love is beautiful. I must say, I am so lucky to have felt it. And I am even luckier that you felt it for me. But love could not protect you. Love could not keep them from saving me instead of you. Love could not keep you with me.

Dammit Rachel, if the choice could have been mine you know you would be the one alive right now. I wouldn't let anyone come for me if it meant that you would be alright. Your life meant more to everyone, and it meant everything to me.

I would give anything to see you, to touch you, to kiss you. If I could hold you now I'd never let you go. The pain of this burn is nothing compared to the ache of my heart. I may hope to find you, but I know that the price for my life was yours. I'm so sorry…Rachel…

Can I turn back time? Can I make this outcome different? Can I save you?

Perhaps a flip of the coin may tell. Heads I'm living in a nightmare, tails you can be safe.

The verdict? Heads.

I should have known. I always made my own luck, looks like this time it backfired.

There's only one thing left to do, and that would be to finish what I started. Gotham is being swallowed whole by crime; even the most pure, peaceful corners are being devoured by the evils of the city. It's about time someone put a stop to it. And I will be sure to be fair; I'll determine those criminals' fates by utilizing the one thing in this God forsaken world that is, in fact, fair: chance. And I'll use the coin that you held when you died, the last thing I have to remind me of you.

If the coin shines, they live. If it's scarred, they die.

I will be the one to cleanse Gotham. And Rachel, I will do it for you.

* * *

I should have known the Joker was lying. Why didn't I pick up on it? After all the things he'd done I'd trusted him to tell me where you were. How the hell could I have been so stupid?

Something happens when someone you love is in danger. You stop thinking rationally. The frantic thoughts in your head don't contain an ounce of logic, there's no reasoning behind your actions. The only thing on your mind is how to make that person safe again.

I keep going over it in my head. If I just thought it through, if I had taken the time to realize the Joker's tricks, if I had just paid attention…If I just used my damn mind you'd still be alive and I wouldn't be such a wreck.

I'm so sorry Rachel.

The world has a way of taking what you hold dear, only so that it can see how you cope. I came up with this theory when I saw my parents take their lasts breaths, and I confirmed it when the angels stole you away.

So how am I going to cope this time, Rachel? When my parents passed I was young and I didn't know how to take it. You helped me through that, but obviously you're not here to help me through this.

There's so much I wish I could say to you. I would like to tell how beautiful you were, I wish I could tell you how your smile could brighten up the world, and most of all I want to tell how much I loved you.

Rachel, you said you couldn't be with me until I removed my mask. And do you know what? The mask comes off today.

* * *

It's strange, seeing your own funeral take place. I wonder if every spirit does this. Looking from the clouds the congregation looks like a murder of crows. Murder…How ironic that a group of crows is called that, after all a murder is what brings all these people together now, gathered around a gravesite.

I can pick out Bruce immediately. He's slightly detached from the other mourners and stands with his hands clasped in front of him. Alfred is with him, but he knows Bruce well enough to give him his space and so he busies himself arranging flowers over the coffin. Over _my_ coffin.

Bruce looks so solemn. He keeps his eyes trained on the casket but he doesn't seem to be actually looking at. It looks like he's lost in his own thoughts, just the way he always was. Oh Bruce, I'm so sorry…I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to break your heart.

How could I have done that to him? My final act to my best friend was a letter that told him I didn't love him after I'd already told him I'd wait for him. I just had to give him that damn letter. I hope he didn't read it. I hope Alfred doesn't give it to him. Maybe he'll lose it; maybe he'll throw it out. I want him to do whatever he has to so that Bruce never has to know its contents.

I want to reach out to him, touch him one more time, tell him I'm sorry. I want to let him know that I'm alright. I want him to know that he'll always hold a special place in my heart, and as I see him try to hide the tear sliding down his cheek I want to tell him that it's okay to cry.

They start to lower the coffin into the ground and Bruce lets go of his tears. Alfred steps next to him, places a gentle hand on his shoulder but the old butler makes no move to guide Bruce away. He knows as well as I that Bruce will stand there until my casket is six feet under, he will remain still until he sees it covered with earth. He needs to watch the burial to the end, for closure.

For Bruce, this is not just the funeral of a lifetime friend. It is the funeral of his love, and mine, and even Harvey's. It is the burial of three hearts that were tangled in a web of emotions. Those three hearts were choked by the spider's thread and are laid to rest today. Love trapped the hearts in that web, love led them to believe what they wanted to be true, and love caused them to roll lies off their tongues. Love smiled as one of the hearts became broken beyond repair, and laughed as the others followed suit. In this story, the Joker is not the true villain. The true villain is love.

Love is the funeral of hearts.

**A/N**--

Rachel's part took forever because I kept deleting it, revising it, and then deleting it again. But now that's it done, it's my favorite part. Especially the last paragraph. Please leave reviews, those make me happy.

Shadeslayer


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